win flushed. And this time his `Really!' was startled.

"Of course you may care to get other advice," the doctor went on. "I
shall be delighted to meet a specialist. But I tell you at once my
opinion." This with a gesture of candour.

"Oh!" said Edwin. "If you're sure--"

Strange that the doctor would not give a name to the disease! Most
strange that Edwin even now could not demand the name.

"I suppose he's in his right mind?" said Edwin.

"Yes," said the doctor. "He's in his right mind." But he gave the
reply in a tone so peculiar that the affirmative was almost as
disconcerting as a negative would have been.

"Just rest he wants?" said Edwin.

"Just rest. And looking after. I'll send up some medicine. He'll like
it." Mr Heve glanced absently at his watch. "I must be going."

"Well--" Edwin opened the door.

Then with a sudden movement Mr Heve put out his hand.

"You'll come in again soon?"

"Oh yes."

In the hall they saw Maggie about to enter the dining-room with a
steaming basin.

"I'm going to give him this," she said simply in a low voice. "It's so
long to dinner-time."

"By all means," said Mr Heve, with his little formal bow.

"You've finished seeing him then, doctor?"

He nodded.

"I'll be back soon," said Edwin to Maggie, taking his hat from the rack.
"Tell father if he asks I've run down to the shop."

She nodded and disappeared.

"I'll walk down a bit of the way with you," said Mr Heve.

His trap, which was waiting at the corner, followed them down the road.
Edwin could not begin to talk. And Mr Heve kept silence. Behind him,
Edwin could hear the jingling of metal on Mr Heve's sprightly horse.
After a couple of hundred yards the doctor stopped at a house-door.

"Well--" He shook hands again, and at last smiled with sad sweetness.

"He'll be a bit difficult to manage, you know," said Edwin.

"I don't think so," said the doctor.

"I'll let you know about the specialist. But if you're sure--"

The doctor waved a deprecating hand. It might have been the hand of his
brother, the Vicar.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TWO.

Edwin proceeded towards the town, absorbed in a vision of his father
seated in the dining-room, inexpressibly melancholy, and Maggie with her
white apron bending over him to offer some nice soup. It was a
desolating vision--and yet he wondered why it should be! Whenever he
reasoned he was always